Welcome to Art Hell

"oh, did you make the font bigger and more legible?"

"no we're just doing the next edition in D&D5e"

"we're making our video game more accessible!"

"oh did you add an option to remap the controls?"

"which part? what did you make accessible?"

it is a very popular trend right now to add, like, features that skip the engagement with an interactive work of art, such as skipping combat or making combat impossible to lose in a combat-focused video game, or in the scene of TTRPGs making your TTRPG completely dumbed down or just hastily and mindlessly making it a D&D5e hack "because people already know how to play D&D5e and I want it to be accessible" instead of expecting people to actually read and learn and engage with a set of specific rules, and call all of that "accessibility" instead of adding "accessibility" features that would actually help disabled people access the "meat" of whatever the interactive art is.

If it's a combat-focused video game, some examples would be helping them engage with the full depth of the combat by allowing the controls to be fully remapped to something easier for their hands(or lack of hands), or the option to disable flashing lights or reduce the intensity muzzle flashes on the guns or something.

I think I have come up with a good example to illustrate this point. Let's say there is an FPS where you shoot aliens. Pretend it's, like, Halo but not specifically Halo.

And let’s say there’s a group of disabled gamers who are excited for this video game.

Missing Finger Guy, Deaf Guy, Colorblind Guy, and Poor Eyesight Guy.

Missing Finger Guy is missing at least one finger that corresponds to the Dodge button, he can’t reliably press it especially on short notice when aliens are coming at his character. So, he can’t really play the game because dodging is required to beat the levels. The game devs provide an “acccessibility” easy mode that turns off combat or makes the enemies do so little damage that he never needs to use the Dodge button. So, Missing Finger Guy can play the game now, right? Wrong. Dodging enemies *is* the game, and he still never gets to play with the Dodge button, or engage with any of the other elements of the game that are watered down by making enemy attacks not matter. To make the fun gameplay of dodging enemies accessible to this player, the answer is to allow remapping the Dodge action to a button that he can reach.

Deaf Guy

The game expects the player to rely on audio cues to know when enemies are sneaking up behind them or when a grenade lands at their feet or when an enemy is about to do a specific attack. Obviously the deaf player can’t hear these and can’t play the game because he’ll just die all the time to attacks which are literally impossible for him to predict. Again, this could be “fixed” by a mode that makes it so it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t hear a grenade land at his character’s feet by removing the consequence of death for failing to notice the grenade, or you could add the option to turn on subtitles for both story dialogue and sound effects like “[grenade beep]” and “[screatchure scream].” One of these allows the deaf gamer to play on roughly the same playing field as other players and react to threats the same way that hearing people can do that he can engage with the meat of the game, and the other doesn’t.

Colorblind Guy

The video game features enemies that are identifiable by their red and blue armor. Red aliens throw red grenades that you can catch and throw back, and blue aliens throw blue grenades that explode by proximity and you just have to fully avoid. Obviously, a colorblind player cannot reliably tell these apart, and would either have to try to throw back grenades at random and hope for the best, or just avoid all grenades to be safe. You could “fix” this by removing the consequence of death for getting exploded by a grenade, or you could fix it by adding a togglable colorblindness mode that switches the color distinction to something visible or adds some other distinctive feature besides color to one of those grenade types. One of these allows the colorblind player to engage with the intended gameplay of the game by taking informed risks by trying to throw back certain grenades, and one of them doesn’t, making it just not matter what decision he makes.

Poor Eyesight Guy

You get the formula by now. The *actually* accessible feature would be allowing him to adjust the text to be more readable instead of making it not matter if he can read the directions that tell him how to get through the minefield safety by removing the consequences for stepping on a mine.

A mode that simply removes consequences for failing to engage with and react appropriately to the threats the game presents is, at best, appealing only to people who don’t actually *like* the gameplay in the first place, while still shutting out the people who *want* to engage with the full depth of the gameplay but can’t because of some disability that prevents them from doing so as intended.

Because the gameplay isnt just seeing the cutscenes and getting a “level cleared” achievement, it is dodging the enemies, throwing back the grenades, listening for the screatchure screams, etc..

If there is an enemy who is super tough from the front and will kill you if you can’t get around behind him, you don’t make the game more “accessible” by making him so weak from the front that it doesn’t matter where you shoot him, or making his attacks so weak that you can shrug them off long enough to whittle him down from the front, youve actually removed this enemy from the game by making him just like the common enemies that can be shot from the front. You have actually made the element of the gameplay provided by this enemy inaccessible by doing this, because the quick thinking and tactical usage of the game’s features required to get behind him *is* the gameplay.

I like difficulty levels, sometimes I don't enjoy a specific aspect of gameplay or I just want to blast through from cutscene to cutscene, and being able to toggle a zero-consequences baby mode is a nice option to have.

Option to hold or toggle buttons for running

Quick Time Events on a toggle, or not involving quick, successive button presses (just one press)

Ability to change the colour, font and size of subtitles!

Ability to re-map buttons

ABILITY TO USE A NONSTANDARD CONTROLLER

Ability to change brightness, colour saturation, lighting intensity and filtering

ABILITY TO TURN OFF FLASHING LIGHTS OH MY FUCKING GOD

Volume control that lets you turn up the dialogue and atmospheric sound but turn the music down

Ability to turn off camera shake and blur

And you might ask 'well how is x an accessibility feature'

But consider:

People who have issues with their hands (muscle weakness, missing fingers, impaired reflexes)

Folks who are hard of hearing or have other hearing issues

Also you can buy my Ref folder here 

You think your company pays you out of the goodness of their hearts? Or even out of “market pressure?” The “job market” is a myth perpetuated by the capitalists. Corporations would pay you nothing if they could get away with it. And you argue “oh, but if they paid me nothing I’d just go to another one.” Wrong. Because to maximize profits, they all want to pay you nothing. Corporations exist to maximize profits while reducing risk for investors. It’s part of their entire function to find ways to cut costs as much as possible, and that includes finding ways to pay you nothing.

Unions are your defense against that. You think all a union does is strike? If you pay union dues, a lot of that is spent on lobbyists in various governments reminding your lawmakers that you have rights as a living human being that a corporation should not be able to stomp all over. Unions hire lawyers so that if you’re fired for bullshit reasons, the union can stand up for you against your boss. They’re called unions because workers are uniting to pool resources so that they can stand up to these corporate overlords with more money than God. Unions exist because you might not have the words, resources, or time to fight workplace injustices all by yourself. That’s the whole fucking point.

Workers: *Go on strike*

But it’s about workers rights and the people who campaigned for it to be a holiday knew this fucking day would come.

"ahem."

"EVERYONE PLEASE GIVE A WARM WELCOME TO MELISSA!"

"Hey."

"...sword juggling.."

"I was a bit to.. ambitious for my skill level."

"That's all I want to say."

How did you meet Melissa and Depths? What encouraged you to invite them to your circus?

"I met Depths when one of our mutual friends brought me to their tank! They seemed lonely, so I offered to show them my circus! Turns out they're REALLY good at juggling!!! Makes they're day to do it, no matter how few things they have to juggle! It would have been cruel of me to NOT add them to the circus!"

"As for Melissa... She found me actually! Said she wasn't supposed to go snooping around places she didn't belong, and found me alone in the circus."

"It wasn't much to look at back then, having less decorations than it does now. She didn't seem to care though, came back often to make sure I was still alive she said. I don't know what the fuss is about..."

"it's not like we can die."

"Is it working..?"

"OH! It is!!" "GIVE ME JUST! ONE MOMENT OF YOUR TIME!"

"ahem..."

"WELCOME TO MY BIG TOP!"

"Not to be confused with some Other Circus Act here in Gardenview-"

"so much for a perfect first take..."